□ Introduction

Stakeholders form an integral part of any organisation's external and internal context, as discussed in Chapter 4. The needs and interests of stakeholder groups influence both the what and the how of change. Not all stakeholders are of equal importance or influence, and there is a need for an approach to determine how best to engage with stakeholders in different change contexts.

As a change idea or program is introduced people will naturally align themselves with various positions with regard to the change. For some the change may represent a step in the right direction, and therefore something to be supported. For others it could constitute a threat – for example, by rendering their current competencies redundant – and so they may oppose the change. In many change situations there are a great variety of possible positions, and the complexity is increased as stakeholders change their positions over time. Therefore, when leading change it is helpful to understand the positions that stakeholders may adopt and what the consequences of this can be for change outcomes. In this chapter we explore a technique for mapping stakeholders’ positions, recognising the influence that they might exert and the dynamics that emerge as people act and react to each other.

We illustrate some of these points by drawing upon a hypothetical case. Whilst ‘managing’ stakeholders may not be possible, the techniques discussed can provide a route to engaging with stakeholders and influencing outcomes.

□Stakeholder positioning

Two of the fundamental questions of change management are ‘What space do we have to act in?’ and ‘How can we increase that space?’ (Freeman, 1984). The space for acting is defined by the relative position of the individual or group seeking to make change happen and others around them who could be relatively supportive or obstructive towards the change intention. Stakeholder mapping has often been used to work out how to develop organisations in the midst of a network of others who may want to see different outcomes (Schneider, 2002). Stakeholder analysis can be used for a variety of purposes during a change project (Peltokorpi et al., 2007). These include assessing expected benefits (Strong, Ringer & Taylor, 2001), understanding implementation challenges, analysing the capability of an organisation to change and gaining insight into stakeholders’ influence over implementation.

□Introduction

Regardless of the change model adopted, the principles remain the same. Each model is a diagnostic method that aids the change manager in determining the mindset of individuals to make sense of what needs to be changed and to know how to achieve that change.

This very act is a social construction of reality in organisations. The success of change can often be related to how the social construction of realities occurs in conversations and the stories shared in organisations. The significance of conversations and stories in organisational change is considerable, as they become the supporting rationales and required stability for change to occur. Change managers and agents often use stories as conversational tools to understand individuals and their sense of change (Bushe & Marshak, 2014).

It is very common for problems and successes in change management to be traced back to communications. Communications in organisations mainly take the form of conversations and stories. Many reports of failure in change management claim that there had been insufficient or ineffective communication, with the result that people did not know what they were meant to do or felt excluded. However, communicating clearly is only part of the answer. When we are communicating about complex matters such as change, people often do a lot of sense-making, in which they can understand quite different things from the same set of words (Brown, Stacey & Nandhakumar, 2008). For example, a leader might explain clearly that the changes will lead to greater customer satisfaction, but different members of the organisation might interpret this as meaning, for example, that there will be less autonomy for employees because they will have to follow customer demands, that the new approach will lead to better profits, or that the statement is merely rhetoric and the leader does not really care about customers; there are, of course, many other possible interpretations (Sims, Huxham & Beech, 2009).

□ Introduction

To build a foundational understanding of change, it is helpful to examine some classic theoretical perspectives. This is not with the intention to establish a fixed perspective around core fundamental principles, but rather to begin to appreciate the many different theorectical perspectives from which change may be approached. Change has a long history in organisational and management literature, therefore it is important to place contemporary developments in context relative to prior contributions. In this chapter, we review key concepts and frameworks from respected scholars and discuss their application within the enquiry–action approach.

Four key approaches to conceptualising change will guide discussion throughout the chapter and demonstrate a critical thinking and processual approach to change. We will also reveal how adopting these approaches can help an organisation navigate successfully, even when faced with continuous or radical change.

As organisations are constantly experiencing change, the importance of them developing refreshed management practices to stay afloat amidst competitive environments will also be explored. It is important to note that the review in this chapter is necessarily limited, since there is a vast amount of work that could be included. In later chapters we will introduce an increasing number of approaches to change that will complement and contradict this work, particularly in Chapter 4 and Chapter 9.

□Different change approaches

▄Approach one: Van de Ven and Poole's framework of change

Change in organisations can be thought of in many different ways, and Andrew Van de Ven and Scott Poole (1995; 2005) have developed a useful framework that helps in systematically arranging the plethora of alternatives. There are two axes to their framework. First is the issue of change focus, or what they term the ‘unit of change’. Some ways of thinking about change focus relatively closely on a particular company, product or process. For example, someone seeking to champion a new product might be expected to be concerned principally with change in relation to that product, rather than the whole company. Other models focus more broadly on multiple entities interacting together in a system, such as several companies competing in the same market, or several proposals for new products competing with each other for limited investment funding.

□ Introduction

When we walk into an organisation for the first time, we quickly pick up on its atmosphere. Much like viewing a home or interviewing a candidate for a job, we form first impressions quickly. In some cases, it may be the creative sparks of an energetic and innovative workplace that we discern. In others it may the dour and somewhat lifeless sense that the organisation is failing in some way. Since organisations are populated by people, it is natural to question the relationships between individual and collective moods. Does, for example, working in a great organisation make you happy, or can a bad workplace lower your mood? Robert Quinn feels that there is a need for a ‘new and larger concept called organisational vitality’ (1978, p. 395). For Quinn, this concept would incorporate elements such as motivational climate, and other aspects that we might relate to organisational culture (see Chapter 8). In our own research we continue to be struck by the markedly differing accounts of organisational life that we have heard over many years of interviewing members of a variety of public, private and third sector organisations.

This chapter explores some of the work that relates to vitality and engagement before introducing a simple vitality diagnostic that we have developed for use in change processes.

□Vitality as an organisational concept

We are familiar with the use of the term vitality as it relates to the human condition. A person with vitality might be described as having vigour, good health, energy, strength, spark or enthusiasm. A person who has vitality is more lively, or ‘full of life’. These are health-related terms that are evident from a person's behaviour. Indeed, it has been argued that health is inherently an organisational and relational phenomenon (MacIntosh, MacLean & Burns, 2007). In the early part of the last century Alfred North Whitehead observed that ‘prolonged routine work dulls the imagination’ (1929, p. 144) and that ‘it is a libel upon human nature to conceive that zest for life is the product of pedestrian purposes directed toward the narrow routine of material comforts’ (p. 140). Vitality might therefore have its roots in the nature of our organisational experience, since health and disease have both been conceptualised as organisational phenomena (MacLean & MacIntosh, 1998).

Practising as a tax lawyer involves far more than the mundane preparation of income tax returns; it involves interacting and negotiating with governments in high-stakes disagreements over large amounts of money on behalf of large corporations. Australian tax law is a complex area with multiple shades of grey, creating numerous opportunities for disagreements and change.

Dr Niv Tadmore has over 18 years’ experience working as a tax lawyer. In that time, he has found that change comes about from two main sources: the complexity of tax law and the fierce competition for business.

Firstly, tax law is complex. Australian tax law and practice is changing all the time, through legislation, cases, policy and other types of reform. Tax policy is hotly debated by governments, revenue authorities and tax payers, creating waves (or occasionally tidal waves) of change to be tackled by a tax practitioner. These policy and reform changes create ongoing challenges and corresponding opportunities for those operating in this area.

Secondly, there is change related to being part of a firm that is competitive in the market. This is where a tax lawyer has to be ahead of the curve, ahead of the herd, ahead of the game. Niv says that providing professional services is not about selling a product or giving information: ‘The market won't pay for that. Rather, it is about giving advice, using your wisdom, exercising your judgement and making a call’. He believes that it is their judgement and ability to adapt to change that sets a good lawyer apart. The provision of professional services is competitive and it is becoming increasingly more so. In recent years, Australia has seen the rapid influx of international law firms and the expansion of professional services into the legal market. This changing market creates new challenges for lawyers, in particular tax lawyers, and new opportunities to respond innovatively. In this context, change is necessary and invaluable to ensuring a competitive edge as a practitioner.

Smile Solutions is not your ordinary dental practice. The award winning business was launched in 1993 by a Melbourne dentist, Dr Kia Pajoushesh, with just eight clients. As a young dentist starting out, he had spent nearly $3000 on a single dental chair and could not afford to pay his dental nurse for hours beyond lunchtime, at which point he would send her home. By 2016, Smile Solutions had undergone such dramatic growth and change that it had transformed into a business with net revenues that exceeded $18 million. It had more than 80 000 clients who were served by more than 50 specialists, dentists and hygienists. Supporting those registered dental professionals and clients were a further 50 or so ancillary members, including management, reception and nursing staff. Together they had achieved average annual growth in excess of 25 per cent. How did one dental practice transform itself into one of the most awarded medium-sized businesses in Australia? Perhaps even more remarkably, how did it maintain service excellence whilst achieving such high levels of growth? Clearly, Kia Pajoushesh is not your ordinary dentist.

To understand the remarkable nature of the Smile Solutions business, it helps to examine the typical way dentistry is practised in Australia. The majority of dentists are employed in local, private practices of dentists working in partnership, or they are sole practitioners supported by locums. These general practices are often named after their location – either suburb or street. Growth-oriented medium-sized dental practices typically locate themselves in larger suburbs or cities to draw on a larger client base. In Melbourne, the larger and more elite practices are located on Collins Street.

Supporting the generalist dentistry practice model are the dental specialist practices, to which any broader or more complex dental issues are referred. These specialists include orthodontists, oral and maxillofacial surgeons and others. Dental specialists rely on building and maintaining multiple relationships with general practices and with other specialists to provide their steady stream of clients. This general practitioner/ specialist model is the cornerstone of advanced medical and dental health care systems around the world.

The Australian Red Cross (ARC) is a leading humanitarian organisation that exists to empower and support vulnerable people, making them more resilient through the delivery of services and the promotion of humanitarian laws and values. The ARC has an annual turnover of more than $A500 million (2014–15) and is one the largest non-profits in Australia, with over 500 branches, 20 000 members, 22 000 volunteers and 2400 staff.

The ARC was established at the commencement of World War I in 1914 as a National Society of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). The IFRC is the world's largest volunteer-based humanitarian network, reaching 150 million people each year through its 187 member National Societies.

The global intent statement of the IFRC movement is ‘power through humanity’. The second positioning statement that communicates most succinctly what the IFRC is about is ‘saving lives, changing minds’. In other words, combining humanitarian aid with advocacy.

In the hundred years since then, the ARC has continued to mobilise volunteers to deliver services beyond the scope of its original mandate. By the end of the 20th century, however, it was clear that the organisation was not effectively addressing the emerging challenges and complexities faced by communities in Australia. The organisation was still mobilising thousands of volunteers and serving the community but had a convoluted structure and lack of discipline in the development and delivery of humanitarian services. In short, the ARC was no longer aligned with the IFRC values and mission.

Greenheck is a major supplier of commercial heating, ventilation and cooling (HVAC) equipment worldwide. The organisation's goal is to provide the best value products, services and solutions to customers who want to move, control or condition air. Robert (Bob) and Bernie Greenheck formed the company in 1947, in a small shop located in Schofield, Wisconsin. Bob was the engineer and builder of the products, whilst Bernie was the salesman who would go out and find the customers to buy them. In the early years there were often attempts to provide more services beyond the HVAC equipment but in the end the company found its strength in the provision of HVAC. Those early days also proved to the Greenheck brothers that the power of sustainable innovation was truly one of the things that set Greenheck apart from its competitors. Bernie's consistent feedback from the field allowed Bob to change and adapt the product to deliver on the customer need, ensuring a strong and innovative product line. Whilst that practice still exists today, it is not enough in a hyper-competitive global market that demands more from businesses.

□ What innovation means to Greenheck

Innovation has become the new rallying cry for many organisations: ‘We must innovate in order to maintain our edge and provide long-term growth for decades to come.’ Whilst this can provide some guidance, without direction it provides little in the way of why it is that an organisation needs innovation. It does not answer the questions about what it will do to make change sustainable and how it will manage and maintain it over time. If innovation, taking a classical definition, is something new and something that creates dramatic change then we as humans have experienced this since our existence on the planet. That Greenheck has achieved a leadership position is attributable in large part to its long-standing commitment to consistently provide solutions to new industry challenges. Growing demand for building projects that reflect ‘green’ initiatives is impacting the ventilation industry. Greenheck was one of the first manufacturers of air-moving and -control equipment to join the US Green Building Council.

□ Introduction

As discussed in Chapter 10, it is apparent that as organisations grow they begin to formalise the way in which business is conducted. This is because all organisations reach a size at which an informal approach is no longer tenable. Everything from recruiting staff and choosing suppliers to designing products and managing quality can be described in terms of the sequence of activities involved. The larger, more established and more complex the organisation, the more formal the documentation of such activities can become, and many large organisations have lengthy documentation setting out the way in which tasks are accomplished. Whilst this is sometimes necessary for accreditation purposes, such as ISO 9001, such codified specification of tasks can be cumbersome. Partly because such documentation is long and detailed and has a number of interconnects with other aspects of organisational life, it can be very challenging to introduce change. Change to approved, accredited or simply familiar ways of doing things might need to involve multiple stakeholders (see Chapter 7) and can be time-consuming.

This chapter focuses on how to approach changing the sequence, location and timing of routine tasks. These bundles of tasks are often described as processes, or business processes. This view of processes as the operational mechanics of day-to-day business is an important aspect of managing change and draws on literatures that are rooted in computing science and operations management. This is quite a separate body of work from the process literature in strategic management, which more typically refers to longitudinal studies of strategy-making processes (see Pettigrew, 1992). The 1990s saw a trend whereby large numbers of organisations tried to maximise the efficiency of their business processes (see Hammer, 1990). This chapter reviews the origins of process mapping and introduces two mapping techniques that can be used to capture a description of a process.

□Netflix

Netflix is a true leader in innovation. So successfully and seamlessly has it integrated itself into people's lives, many don't even register it as an innovative technology, which adds credit to its democracy and disruption as a business model.

Netflix's success is rooted in its compassion for its customers and its ‘constructive anarchy’, as Megan Quinn, one of the co-founders of Net-a-Porter, asserts (MCEC Open Space Program, 2016). This compassionate constructive anarchy demonstrates itself through Netflix's initial start-up model as a DVD rental-by-mail service. This service appealed to ‘movie buffs who did not care about new releases, early adopters of DVD players, and online shoppers’ (McAlone, 2015) – or, rather, the people that video rental chains such as Blockbuster under-served. It offered them affordable content that was readily available (Gordon, 2015).

This initial service did not have widespread appeal and lacked the resources of the Netflix we know today. But by knowing its customer base and delivering a reliable and high-quality service, Netflix was able to rally against the likes of Blockbuster. A ‘disruptive’ company targets segments of the population that have been overlooked by its competitors, delivering an alternative often at a lower price, and this is exactly what Netflix did and continues to do.

True disruption occurs when mainstream customers adopt the alternative offering en masse. The company will quickly move up-market on a mass scale and start to deliver a service that not only appeals to its initial market but to the mainstream market as well (Christensen, Raynor & McDonald, 2015). It maintains the advantages it had at the beginning but adds things that appeal to the mainstream. (McAlone, 2015) Then – all of a sudden – there is no room in the market for companies like Blockbuster, which went bankrupt in 2010 (Gordon, 2015).

Netflix has forever changed the way that we engage with media and has rendered many previous forms redundant, or has challenged their existence and forced them to innovate. For example, the emergence of catch up/on-demand services for many freeto- air television channels, and pay-TV services such as Foxtel needing to find ways to cut costs, offer exclusive content and challengemedia licensing laws to remain relevant.

□ Introduction

In Part C of this book we engage with a series of chapters that draw on the earlier foundational and diagnosing concepts and explore enacting change in the workplace. This first chapter tackles the issue of choosing an approach to change. In practice, organisations do not only have to make decisions about where to focus their change efforts, but also the means by which to approach change. There may be a default approach to change within an organisation, but whether or not that approach suits the current and emerging context demands further consideration. In this interplay we see the diagnosis of contextual factors informing the enacting of change.

The marketplace of ideas and approaches for tackling organisational change is a crowded one. There are numerous schools of thought, frameworks, methodologies and practices related to change (Armenakis & Bedeian, 1999). Burnes (1996) argues that there is no one right way to approach change, but not all change options are suitable for an organisation's circumstances. Choice is unavoidable. Many change efforts fail. In this context of uncertainty and broad choice, organisations face a recurring fundamental decision – how to best tackle the immediate change challenges.

The key principles of rational decision-making and bounded rationality will be compared and contrasted to consider how critical choices related to change are influenced and determined. Decision-making theory will be introduced to provide a sound base on which to explore factors that aid or impede the decision-making process. We examine the difference between optimising choices and satisficing choices and the limitations of rational decision-making.

To gain a sense of the many different options available to organisations, we will examine alternative schools of thought, change models and popular business/change systems. We will pick up on the issues of context in relation to both change approaches and change choices. Organisations are often seen to jump on the bandwagon of popular change approaches. We consider the possible influence of brand effects on choice in relation to change. Burnes (1996) summarised these key themes of choice and approaches to change very well.

Lezhang Technology Co. Ltd is a start-up business that was formed in 2011 by two Chinese nationals – one a financial investor, and the other, Mike Chen, whose background is in product development, sales and marketing, and corporate management. The business started in the Pearl River Delta of South China with app development services. Today, Lezhang specialises in mobile app software for wearable technology and healthcare.

□ In the beginning …

Initially, the founders intended Lezhang to be a service provider for digital coupons in the Online2Offline (O2O) market of consumer products at shopping malls and department stores in China. On this basis, an ex-colleague of Chen's, who had been volunteering his time, joined the start-up as an employee – in the role of Technical Director – and the founders relied on their networks to recruit two others, who brought expertise in the area of software design and development.

Despite bringing in this talent, the business did not take off immediately. The purchasing styles of popular fashion brands such as Ralph Lauren, Versace and Chanel were keen to continue to have direct consumer contact and sales and were not motivated to invest in new technologies, even for revenue growth. Furthermore, the founders began to differ over which apps they should promote to traditional businesses. This led to conflict, and one of the founders and the Technical Director resigned; as a consequence, the business took a downward turn due to a lack of expertise. However, Mike Chen did not give up. Thinking creatively, he and the financial investor jointly injected a lifeline investment into the firm and reorganised the business model to focus on developing mobile apps for electronics manufacturers. These apps would enable data interaction and communication between smartphones and a variety of smart devices. The first project was to develop an app for smart scales.

□

□Introduction

Learning and development are central to change management as most change projects involve people doing things differently. Major changes often mean that people need to go about understanding the nature of the organisation's processes, relationships with customers and clients and practices of delivery in different ways. Such changes mean that the change manager has to understand how people develop and what can be done to enable people to enact and understand the innovations that are aspired to (Antonacopoulou, 2006).

In this chapter, we explore the nature of reflection and reflexivity and the ways that change managers can challenge themselves to develop new understandings of who they are and what they do. We focus on the distinction between technique learning – the focus on specific, defined skills outcomes – and insight learning – the focus on developing new ways of conceiving reformatory personal change. We discuss how the alternative methods of learning and development can be integrated within the workplace and discuss the role of the change manager in selecting which methods to use to meet the demands of their situation (Easterby-Smith & Lyles, 2003).

In 2010, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development survey of learning and development methods reported to have found that there was an increasing integration of coaching, organisational development and performance management in which the aim was to increase innovation and effectiveness. Talent management was seen as a key driver of business, and 60 per cent of businesses in the survey were investing in talent management. This included in-house courses and coaching. In addition, mentoring schemes were on the increase, along with learning on the job. However, in 2014 the Brandon Hall Group 2014 Learning and Development Benchmarking Study reported that the trends of learning and development were changing and organisations needed to use adaptive learning principles with consideration to mobile technology and adoption of social learning tools. In this chapter, we compare and contrast some of these approaches and offer guidance on how they might be combined fruitfully. We start by discussing approaches to learning and explain the model of learning for technique and insight.

□ Introduction

In this concluding chapter we revisit the enquiry–action framework in the light of the ideas, techniques and cases that have been discussed. We explore how the framework can be used in leading and managing planned and unplanned change and we consider how the separate practices of the framework can be integrated.

Lewin's strength was to take the theoretical research position and work towards practical outcomes and this approach illustrated the interdependence between theory and practice.

□Change as flux

Fineman, Sims and Gabriel (2005) introduce the metaphor of a river as a way of thinking about organisations, or, rather, the set of practices that constitute organising. This relates to a perspective on organisations as being in flux (Chia, 1995), as actors act, interact and react within a socio-economic climate that is typically changeable. In some senses, this may appear to be unsettling, as we never reach the ‘refreezing’ part of Kurt Lewin's (1947) model of change (unfreeze, change, refreeze), and hence there is never a finished conclusion or a point at which we can objectively say that a change was a success or a failure. Although this might be disconcerting, we see it as being of more practical help than the traditional way of thinking about organisations as objects, machines or closed systems (Marshak, 2009). There is constant motion but, at the same time, an identity and a set of meanings that are conserved over time. Viewed by a swimmer in the river, it is a place of constant change. Viewed by a cartographer on a series of maps drawn over time, it is an incrementally changing feature of the landscape. Hence, it is not only that there is a core of organising practices that remain the same over time and a periphery that changes. Rather, what changes, what is core and how these ideas are interpreted will vary from different perspectives (Tsoukas & Chia, 2002). What might be significant ‘big scale’ change for some (Burnes, 2009) might be relatively modest re-emphasising for others. A change manager must be able to judge where and when to intervene and how to do so in a way that is productive.